As Bills defensive tackle Marcell Dareus stews about his contract and covets a chance to hit the open market and get paid like Ndamukong Suh, Dareus is overlooking an important factor, beyond his pair of arrests from May 2014.
It’s called the franchise tag.
Dareus thinks the team’s reported offer of more than $90 million over six years (numbers presumably leaked by the team to make him look greedy) means they don’t want him. The application of the tag in 2016 will provide a more clear answer to that question.
For 2015, the franchise tag for defensive tackles was $11.193 million. It’ll be higher than that for 2016, but not by a huge amount. Which means that the Bills can keep him around for another season via the franchise tender; they can keep him for two seasons if they’re willing to give him a 20-percent raise for 2017.
If he’s tagged, Dareus doesn’t have to sign it. But the Bills would control his rights, keeping him from hitting the open market.
And hitting the open market is the only way to have a chance at getting Suh money. For the former Lion, his top-two contract from the year before the adoption of the rookie wage scale as restructured by the team resulted in a cap number for 2014 that would have triggered a franchise tag of nearly $30 million for 2015. So the Lions couldn’t tag Suh, and the Dolphins were able to sign him to a monstrous deal.
Dareus may not get a shot at the open market until 2018, after playing two years under the tag. For a third application of it, the Bills would owe Dareus a 44-percent raise over his 2017 number or the quarterback tender. Which means they wouldn’t tag him three times in a row. Which means he’d hit the open market.
Until then, whether he can get Suh money from anyone doesn’t matter. It’ll be $8 million under the fifth-year option in 2015, and up to two years of the franchise tag after that.